A long-term study to increase water use efficiency, grain yield and the profit of growers in the Western region in a no-till system. Cunderdin Site

The main principles of conservation agriculture are permanent soil cover, minimal soil disturbance and diverse crop rotations, yet these are often absent from our no-till systems. This project was designed to test and further develop high quality no-till systems based on these conservation principles. The project commenced in 2006 and completed twelve years of cropping in 2018. An additional year was completed in 2019 with the whole trial seeded to wheat. The overall objective of the project was to determine the benefits of diverse rotations, high residue and minimal disturbance no-till systems on soil quality, weeds, diseases as well as crop water use efficiency, economics, and yield. This collection contain the Cunderdin Site data.\nLineage: Two long-term conservation agriculture cropping system experiments were started in 2007, one on a farm near Mingenew (115°17´E, 28°56´S) and the other at the Cunderdin College of Agriculture (117°14´E, 31°38´S) in Western Australia. The soil at Mingenew was deep yellow sand with a soil pH (0.01M CaCl2) ranging from 5.4 to 5.0. The Cunderdin soil was red sandy clay loam with pH of 6.6, increasing with depth to 7.9.\nThe treatments were based on four different cropping philosophies/rotations titled "P1-maximum carbon input/continuous cereals", "P2- maximum diversity/diverse rotation", "P3-controls/monoculture wheat and permanent pasture" and "P4-maximum profit/farmer rotation" (Appendix 1). There was a total of 11 crop sequences each replicated three times in a randomised complete block design: the P1, P2 and P4 philosophies had a three-year rotation with each phase presented every year, giving nine crop sequences, while P3 had two sequences, being continuous crop and pasture. The crop types grown at the two sites were selected according to the particular philosophies/treatments but differed in some instances between the two sites because of soil type and local experience. Crops were only changed, to ensure they were relevant to farmers after three years (still within the 'philosophy') and when all phases of the rotation were complete.\nPlots in the same phase within a rotation (i.e. the replicates) were given the same sequence number. The three sequences for the cereal rotation were S1-S3, those for the diverse rotation were S4-S6, monoculture wheat S7, pasture S8 and the farmer rotation were S9-S11. Therefore, there were a total of 33 plots, comprising 11 sequences, each replicated three times. In addition, four "far